Wildfire: An Exhibition Exploring Patterns, Devastation & Uncertainty in the Time of Fire

Wildfire is an ongoing exhibition examining our evolving relationship with fire. Wildfires are no longer isolated events—they cross borders, impacting regions regardless of location. Their increasing frequency and intensity remind us that this is a global, urgent issue. The exhibition gathers work from artists worldwide, urban and rural, to explore this collective reality. 

 

The featured works reflect on how we mourn lost relationships—with plants, animals, culture, and past ways of life—while also grappling with how fire alters our concepts of home and community. The exhibition asks us to consider how we remember what’s changed, and how we imagine adapting moving forward. 

 

Ideas of home, loss, and displacement are being reshaped by wildfire. What was once seen as a single trauma that could be processed and overcome is now ongoing and recurring. As wildfires grow in scale and frequency, our understanding and response to tragedy must evolve, challenging us to redefine recovery and resilience. 

 

This exhibition draws on real experiences of evacuation. Across the country, early fire seasons and emergency preparations have become part of life. The unpredictability of having to leave home, sometimes with only moments to choose what matters most, brings into sharp focus what we value and cannot easily take with us—the relationships and routines that define home. 

 

Our sense of self and place is deeply connected to memory. As fires threaten the plants, animals, and familiar routines we depend on, we are asked to confront the inevitability of loss. Finding ways to hold onto or honour what fades—and to anticipate hope when safety returns—has become a necessary part of living with wildfire.

 

This is a group exhibition curated by Lara Felsing and David McGregor which includes works from Julie Andreyev, Alana Bartol, Haley Bassett, Christina Battle, Lewis Bennett, Berg Felsing, Lara Felsing, Heather Hawkins, Gabriella Heron, Aidan Koch, Dan Cardinal McCartney, David McGregor, Astra Papachristodoulou, Danielle Piper, and Genevieve Robertson.

 

*Featured image credit: Dan Cardinal McCartney, Issac, Meet Me When the River Breaks, Acrylic, charcoal, gesso on unstretched canvas, 6 feet x 9 feet, 2023.